Prosecutors Prepare Case Against New Dotson Trial

May 15, 1985|By John Kass and Ann Marie Lipinski.

Prosecutors asked a Cook County Criminal Court judge Tuesday for additional time to prepare their arguments opposing Gary Dotson`s request for a new trial for a rape that his accuser now says never happened.

During a brief hearing, J. Scott Arthur, an assistant state`s attorney, filed a motion to dismiss Dotson`s petition for a new trial and asked Chief Judge Richard Fitzgerald for time to gather additional testimony for his argument against granting Dotson a retrial on his 1979 conviction for the rape and kidnaping of Cathleen Crowell Webb.

Arthur said prosecutors wanted to include statements made by witnesses at last week`s hearing before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. After three days of hearings before the board, Gov. James Thompson commuted Dotson`s 25-to 50-year prison sentence to the six years already served.

Fitzgerald continued the case until June 4.

Jack Rimland, a lawyer for Dotson, said the petition for retrial should be granted because Webb perjured herself in her testimony against Dotson and because a state forensic expert misrepresented himself and evidence against Dotson.

Rimland said Dotson`s constitutional rights were violated by the use of what he said was perjured testimony at Dotson`s trial before Cook County Judge Richard Samuels on charges that he abducted Webb on July 9, 1977 and raped her.

On Monday, Dotson, 28, celebrated his first full day of freedom by attending a benefit at an Oak Forest bar. About 100 persons paid $6 each to help defray his legal fees and listen to a rock-and-roll band.

Dotson and Webb were scheduled to return Wednesday to where her media campaign to free him began, NBC-TV`s ``Today Show.`` According to Warren Lupel, another of Dotson`s attorneys, the two will meet privately in a New York hotel before a joint appearance on the show.

Lupel said the meeting was arranged Monday by him and John McLario, Webb`s lawyer. Dotson will travel to New York with William Julian, one of the friends he said he was with on the night Webb said initially she had been raped.

Dotson, in a Monday press conference outside his Country Club Hills home, said he had ``a shaky feeling`` about meeting his accuser-turned-champion but that he harbored no malice.

Dotson repeated that he is interested in starting a foundation to provide legal assistance for felons who, he said, may have been wrongly convicted of crimes.

The funds for such a project would likely come through the sale of his story to film producers who have telephoned the attorneys and have met with Dotson`s family and with Webb`s New Hampshire pastor, Rev. Carl Nannini.

Webb, in her answers to Thompson at last week`s clemency hearing and in statements to the press, has said that she will not benefit financially from the sale of her story and that any rewards should go to the man she described as her victim. The governor said the two days of Webb`s testimony convinced him that she had been raped and caused him to reject her recantation.

Lupel said that during Webb`s April perjury hearing before Judge Richard Samuels in the Markham branch of Circuit Court, he asked McLario to sign an agreement stipulating that Dotson would not seek civil penalties from Webb if she would sign away her rights to any ``artistic endeavors.``

The agreement, which had been signed by Dotson and his mother, Barbara, was returned to Lupel unendorsed by either Webb or her lawyer. According to Lupel, McLario said he did not approve of the way the agreement had been drafted, although he did not respond to Lupel`s request that McLario himself draft an agreement assigning financial gains to Dotson.

Lupel said he met with McLario on Monday and again asked him to draft such an agreement and that Webb`s attorney said he would comply. Attempts to reach McLario Monday were unsuccessful.

On Sunday, McLario declined to comment when asked about his earlier refusal to waive film and book rights, but he elaborated on his client`s position regarding either a fictional or documentary version of her story.

``Cathy would have to have control over the content,`` he said. ``I`m sure she and her husband would not want an account of their life made to be lurid and sensational.``

While Friday`s clemency hearing was being conducted, Illinois Department of Law Enforcement investigators met with McLario and asked if he had made any agreements with producers or publishers that would result in fees for Webb. McLario said that he had not, according to sources close to Thompson.

Lupel said that he has received 41 offers from producers offering to turn Dotson`s story into a television movie. Some producers have offered to buy one- and two-year options on Dotson`s story at prices ranging from $7,500 to $20,000 a year, according to Lupel. If the movie were to be made, Dotson would stand to make ``as little as five figures and as much as the very low six figures,`` Lupel said.

Lupel said the offers had come from television networks, independent producers and major studios. The list of competitors, however, shrunk by at least one Sunday with Thompson`s refusal to grant Dotson a full pardon.

``It changes the story, and at the present moment we`re no longer interested,`` said Steve Mills, CBS vice president for motion pictures and mini-series. ``The resolution was cloudy; the ending is neither happy or sad.``